Cowlishaw: If history is any guide, Manny's marriage with Rangers won't work

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THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF MANNY RAMIREZ'S CAREER: The Rangers made headlines Wednesday when they signed Manny Ramirez to a minor league deal. Throughout his career, Ramirez has been known as much for his bizarre behavor as for being one of the top sluggers of his generation. Here's a look back at some of the highs and lows of Ramirez's time in baseball.

ARLINGTON — Last year, desperation came to Texas in the broken-down
form of Roy Oswalt. For the Rangers and the veteran pitcher, things went …
poorly.

It’s hard to imagine that desperation will have a better
ending in 2013, if and when it arrives at the Ballpark in the form of Manny
Ramirez.

Keep in mind that the Rangers merely signed him to a minor
league contract Wednesday. The deal assures the 41-year-old Ramirez of nothing
more than getting in a few swings at Round Rock.

As general manager Jon Daniels said, “It’s a no-risk flyer
in a lot of ways.”

But with Ramirez, all you really know is that no matter
how it begins, it’s sure to end on a sour note.

It did in Boston,
where he was taking himself out of the lineup right before games or failing to
run out ground balls. It did in Los
Angeles, where he tested positive for
performance-enhancing drugs and was suspended for 50 games the year after his
big comeback with the Dodgers.

And it did with Tampa
Bay in 2011, when the
Rays got the news from the commissioner’s office, not from Manny himself, that
he was retiring rather than face a 100-game suspension for another positive
test.

If a one-year rental of Oswalt can cause him to describe
the Texas experience as “a bad fit all the way
around” as he did recently in Colorado,
imagine how Manny’s time here could end.

The fact that Ramirez has been a productive hitter in Taiwan this
year signifies nothing.

The man has had no fewer than three positive tests for
performance-enhancing drugs in the last decade (the 2003 test carried no
penalties), he was charged with domestic battery in a dispute with his wife in
Tampa, he once shoved a 64-year-old Red Sox PR man to the ground for failing to
satisfy ticket requests, and yet he is viewed now as a risk worth taking for
the Rangers.

Don’t blame Daniels for taking that risk. Blame the lack
of offense coming from the Rangers’ bats. The club is ninth in the American
League in runs scored and nowhere close to moving into the top eight.

Daniels made it clear that Ramirez needs to do more than
show he can drive baseballs with authority — something he failed to do in his
last two stops, in 2010 and 2011 with the White Sox and Rays, where he hit a
powerless .221 (1 HR in 86 at-bats).

“You have to be talented and productive,” Daniels said.
“You have to fit our winning culture here. Those are going to be the two tests we
will judge Manny by.”

And, frankly, passing the second test seems less likely
than Ramirez suddenly enjoying a rebirth of the power that carried him to 555
career home runs.

There is a reason that “Manny being Manny” is a phrase
embedded in the heads of sports fans everywhere in this country, and it’s
because Ramirez does what he pleases. That has always been the case, and it’s
not going to change just because Ramirez is 41 and on his last major league
legs (if he gets here).

But this is what happens when left-hander Joe Saunders
shackles the Rangers’ offense as he did here Tuesday night for Seattle. This is what happens when designated
hitter Lance Berkman no longer looks like a bargain at $10 million.

Berkman returned to the Rangers’ lineup Wednesday after
missing four games with a bruised knee. With six home runs and 34 RBIs in half
a season, Berkman’s power is not of a sort that tells you this team has all it
needs from the DH position.

Some immediately assumed that the Ramirez move suggests
the club is hedging its bets for the day when right-handed slugger Nelson Cruz
is suspended for 50 games in the Miami PED scandal.

I think that’s less in play here, because no one knows if
and when that will happen, and the deeper we get into the 2013 season, the more
likely that possible suspensions would be handed out in 2014.

And I don’t think the Rangers had 2014 in mind when they
pondered reviving Ramirez’s career.

Regardless, Texas
is in need of offense.

The Rangers are in a tight race with Oakland, and they have issues. And those
issues are serious enough that (gulp) Manny Ramirez seems like the possible
answer to one of those questions.